


i don't wanna walk alone (so let's just get married)

by goingmywaydoll



Series: honey, let's get married [2]
Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Fluff, M/M, One Shot, Parallels, Post-Season/Series 05, Promises, Vignettes, what happens when you trap david in a motel room the night before his wedding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-01
Updated: 2019-08-01
Packaged: 2020-07-28 20:54:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20070439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goingmywaydoll/pseuds/goingmywaydoll
Summary: The day before.





	i don't wanna walk alone (so let's just get married)

**Author's Note:**

> thank you to my wonderful beta leslie for all your amazing comments, i am never exaggerating when i say these things wouldn't be published without her. 
> 
> also thank you to aly for dealing with some late-night emotions about gay weddings, commitment, love, and these two, how she hasn't blocked/reported me is a feat. and thank you to kat for all the pep talks and cheering from the sidelines, her positivity is Literally the reason this all exists.
> 
> again, this is the second part in a five part series about the lead up, the day of, and the aftermath of david and patrick's wedding. originally i had planned to post them on a schedule as they're all practically completed, but editing as proved to be a bit more difficult than expected with the last. but i'd say you can expect an update around once a week.

The morning before the wedding, David flops over in bed to face Patrick, only to find his side of the bed curiously empty. He glances at the clock on the bedside table. It’s still too early for Patrick to be anywhere but in bed and even so, he usually wakes David if he sleeps too late. With much effort, he pulls a sweater on and traipses into the kitchen. Patrick is standing with his back to him in front of the coffee maker, dressed in only a tee and boxers.

He jumps a little when David sneaks his arms around his torso from behind, resting his chin on his shoulder. “Good morning.” David’s voice is thick with sleep, muffled against Patrick’s tee.

“Hi.” Patrick twists in his arms so he can greet him with a slow kiss. 

“So tell me why we’re not in bed right now?” David says when he pulls away.

“I was going to bring you coffee,” Patrick replies, looking a tad smug for David’s taste. “I didn’t expect you to get out of bed.” He makes a big show of looking at the clock on the wall and David grimaces.

“I’d say that I had good motivation to get out of bed,” he says, tightening his grip on Patrick’s waist, “But that comment was uncalled for.”

Patrick lets out a laugh. “So you not waking up before ten every time we've spent the night together has nothing to do with me assuming you wouldn’t get out of bed at…” He sneaks another look at the clock. “Nine am the day before our wedding?”

David can’t help it; a smile blooms on his face at Patrick’s words. The minimal annoyance he felt at Patrick’s teasing dissipates instantly, even if they both know David wakes before eight-thirty every day the store is open.

The coffee maker beeps and David unwinds himself from Patrick, reaching above him into the cabinet to get out their mugs. Patrick is still pressed into the counter as he does so and David tries his best to ignore the way he can feel his breath on his neck. He pours them two generous cups of coffee, handing one to Patrick so he can use his free hand to tug him back into the bedroom. 

Patrick follows dutifully and doesn’t say anything as David takes his coffee cup from him back to set it on the bedside table. He still doesn’t say anything when David nudges him so his knees hit the bed and he doesn’t say anything when he lets himself fall back against it or when David takes his face in his hands to kiss him, knees bracketing his hips. 

And later, when their clothes are in piles on the floor and David is folded into his side, he reaches for his coffee and grimaces. “It’s cold.”

“Are you complaining?” David asks, looking up at him with his brow raised. Patrick doesn’t even try to look anything but completely contented. 

“Not at all,” he says, tilting his head to kiss David’s forehead. 

“That was my last blowjob as your boyfriend,” David says, pensive. He can feel Patrick shake with laughter against him and his heart tightens in his chest. 

“I thought your last blowjob as my boyfriend was the one you gave me the night before I proposed,” Patrick says over the rim of his mug, deadpan. David frowns as if he’s deep in thought.

“Boyfriend, fiancé.” He waves his free hand. “Same thing.” He looks back up at Patrick, his expression softening. “Not the same thing as husband.”

Patrick shrugs, trying for nonchalance, but he can’t help but grin at him and pull him closer. David lets out a sigh, quiet and full of peace. 

At some point, today, Stevie is going to pick him up and take him back to the motel, where Alexis’s bed will be split into two again and they’ll sit cross-legged on the floor as Stevie tries to distract him from the next day, and Patrick will sleep alone in their apartment, as per orders from his mother, and he won’t see him until tomorrow when he’ll be standing at the end of the makeshift aisle they’ll set up in the grass today. He’ll have to fall asleep in a bed on his own tonight, for the first time in months and he’ll wake up alone tomorrow too, but Stevie and Alexis will be there and knowing that after this, he’ll never have to spend a night alone again, is enough to make it worth it.

But right now, he’s tangled up with Patrick in bed and they don’t have anywhere to be for hours and he doesn’t want to be whisked away from his fiancé now or later or ever. He’ll do it because he has to, because his mother has insisted, but right now he’s going to kiss Patrick with comfort and ease and pointed intentions and he isn’t going to think about tomorrow at all. 

* * *

Patrick drops him off just before dinner with his parents and he finds Stevie leaning against the door to Alexis’s room. She’s smirking and he fakes a sneer in her direction.

“See you tomorrow.” David turns at the sound of Patrick's voice to see him leaning his arm against the car window, watching him like he has no intention of pulling out of his parking spot and driving away. 

“Or you could just take me with you?” David says, not for the first time that day.

Patrick’s lips curl in, like he’s trying not to say what he wants to say through a wide smile. “And risk getting murdered by your mother on our wedding day? I’m good.”

“She wouldn’t,” David says, though he’s not tempted to imagine what she _ would _ do if David spent the night at their apartment.

“She would,” Stevie says from behind him and he shoots her a look. “Come on.” She grabs for David’s arm, dragging him half-heartedly into the room. 

David throws one last cry for help over his shoulder, mouthing _ Save me _at Patrick, who has turned the engine back on, the traitor. Patrick waves and pulls out of the motel parking lot, grinning widely. 

“Think you can last until tomorrow?” Stevie looks far too self-satisfied for her own good, arms crossed. 

David simpers at her, faking a pout. “I think I’ll be okay.”

“Just to be safe,” Stevie says, clicking the lock shut on the door, “We’re locking the doors.”

“This _ cannot _ be legal.”

She shrugs. “By all means necessary.”

Alexis is coming out of the bathroom when he sets his bag down on his old bed. “You locked the doors, right, Stevie? He’s like, definitely a flight risk.”

“Oh my _ god_, I’m not a flight risk.”

“David, you were an _ hour _ late,” Stevie points out.

“Helpful as always, Stevie, thank you,” he snaps. “And I…forgot my bag. We had to go back.”

A laugh is threatening to escape Stevie’s lips as Alexis wrings her hands. “And it took you an hour to do the ten minute drive to Patrick’s apartment twice?”

“First of all, it’s also _ my _ apartment, my _ name _ is on the lease now, and I haven’t lived here for months, thanks so much for noticing. Also? Maybe I was an hour late because I was forced, against my will—”

“Those mean the same thing.”

“Shut up, Stevie. So despite the fact that I was _ compelled _ to come _ here _ the _ night _ before my _ wedding _, I have nonetheless whole-heartedly embraced this charade and brought you face masks and wine from the store. So I don’t appreciate being told I’m a ‘flight risk.’” He adds quotation marks with his fingers for good measure.

There’s a long pause where David thinks they might apologize, or maybe even thank him for being such a good sport before Stevie says, “Okay, but you are.”

He lets out a groan, turning around and throwing things out of his overnight bag and onto the bed so hard they bounce. 

* * *

David is feeling cleansed. He has a glass of wine and a fresh face, glowing still from the sheet mask, and Alexis hasn’t asked him if he’s nervous for tomorrow in the past ten minutes. In fact, she’s blissfully on the phone with Ted across the room and tuning her out is easy as he paints Stevie’s nails. It’s too early to go to sleep, but late enough that Patrick will be done with dinner. Any minute now, David will get a good night text, maybe a comment on how dinner went, how many times his parents cried and told him how proud they were. 

Someone knocks at the door and David sets down the bottle of sheer nail polish, uncrossing his legs and moving towards the door. “Um, you’re not allowed near the door,” Alexis says emphatically, covering the microphone on her phone.

“Oh my god?” David’s shoulders come up to his ears and he rolls his head back, eyes closed. “You two cannot be serious.”

“We’re deadly serious,” Stevie says, and he knows that tone in her voice, the one where she’s completely kidding but manages to sound anything but. He glares at her and she tilts her head as if she hasn’t realized he wants to wring her neck, though she has.

“I’m opening it,” he says, and moves to do so just as Alexis snaps at Stevie to stop him; Stevie does, putting her hand on the doorknob herself. 

“It could be _ Patrick_,” Alexis says and Stevie nods seriously.

David rolls his eyes. “It’s not going to be Patrick,” he says and nudges Stevie out of the way so he can open the door.

It’s Patrick, changed from dinner and dressed in sweatpants and a threadbare tee, like he rolled out of bed and drove here without a second thought which, David realizes with a rush, is probably exactly what happened. He looks stupidly good, hair curling at the ends from his shower, five-o-clock shadow ghosting across his jaw that will be shaved tomorrow morning. David hadn’t known, when they said goodbye hours earlier, that he wanted to see him just once more before tomorrow; now that Patrick is here, standing in front of him, hands shoved in his pockets, and looking bashful, David knows he needed this. 

“I’m never speaking to you again.” Alexis appears at his shoulder, lips set in a thin line. 

“How is this _my _ fault? I didn’t even know he was coming!” David’s voice cracks at the end of the sentence, kicking up an octave as he wheels around to face Alexis. 

“Not _ you_.” Alexis jabs him in the chest with her finger. “I meant Patrick.”

“I just wanted to talk to David.” There’s laughter in Patrick’s voice, and incredulity, like he can’t believe this family—fondness too, and it fills David with warmth. 

“You couldn’t just like, wait?” asks Alexis.

“Nope.”

“I mean, _ ew_, but I guess now that you’re here, we can’t stop you.” Alexis turns to Stevie, looking thoughtful. “Unless…?”

Stevie looks mildly alarmed at the idea of what Alexis would do to get Patrick out of there, so she shakes her head furiously. 

“I just need five minutes,” Patrick says, and then he’s grabbing David’s hand and oh, is Patrick going to whisk him away, maybe to a bed and breakfast so he won’t have to spend one more night at this motel; he’s going to rescue him. 

“Mmh, fine. But if you take him anywhere, I really won’t ever speak to you again, even if you’re my brother-in-law,” Alexis says, looking a little as though it pains her. “Don’t tell Mom I let him do this.”

“As if I would,” David throws over his shoulder as Patrick pulls him out the door. “Should I have brought my bag?” he asks, excited as he gets into the passenger seat. 

Patrick doesn’t turn on the car and fixes him with a look. “David, I’m not taking you anywhere. I meant five minutes.”

“Then what is the point of you?” David says, smiling even as Patrick leans across the console to kiss him. 

“Not sure,” he says when he pulls away. “Let me know when you find out.”

The car is quiet, just the sound of crickets outside and Patrick’s breath and David’s heartbeat in his ears. His gaze keeps flickering across the car, catching glimpses of Patrick doing the same. His skin is reflecting blue in the night, eyes a soft, sleepy brown, turning the amber color they do when he’s tired or the light is just right. Everything about it is familiar—the frayed Jays tee, the sweatpants David got him for Christmas the year before, soft and expensive and only worn when Patrick wants to be really comfortable. 

“Everyone thought that I’d be the one to cheat,” David says after a while. Patrick looks up from where his eyes were trained on the wheel. “Alexis and Stevie locked me in the room because they thought if they left me for like, thirty seconds, I’d run off to find you.”

Patrick laughs faintly. “Would you have? If you could?”

“I don’t know. You beat me to it.”

“Yeah, I guess I did.”

“Which, thanks for that, because it means I get to hold it over Alexis that I wasn’t the one to break,” he says and Patrick laughs again and David’s heart cracks open. 

“How are you feeling?” 

“Like I want to disinherit my sister,” he says and he wishes he could pull Patrick into his arms so he could feel the shake of his laughter against him. When his laughter subsides, Patrick gets quiet. David knows what he’s going to ask next so he beats him to it. “But really? I’m feeling very calm.” He tries his very best to make it sound as though there isn’t a question mark at the end of his sentence and he thinks he succeeds.

“Really?” David can _ hear _ the smile in that one word. 

“Really,” he says and Patrick gets quiet again. David wonders what he’s thinking, steals a look at him, skin illuminated in the street light, eyes down as he twists his fingers together, touching his calluses. “How are you feeling?”

He knows the answer won’t be a bad one. The words _ are you sure? _ may have fallen from his mouth when Patrick proposed but he had known the answer then even as he said them just like he knows the answer now.

“Impatient,” Patrick says. “I can’t wait.”

“Neither can I.” He realizes in that moment he’s never looked forward to anything more. 

“I just want to skip ahead to tomorrow night.” The words send a rush of anticipation through David.

“Oh?” he asks.

“Not that—I mean, obviously I’m looking forward to that.” Patrick is grinning at him, playful and light before it softens and he says, “But I meant just being married to you.”

“I love you.” The words come out choked and David is _ not _ going to cry, he absolutely isn’t. The lump in his throat is going to pass and his eyes _ will _ stop burning. Eventually.

“I love you, too.” Patrick’s voice does this thing when he tells David he loves him. It doesn’t always sound exactly the same, sometimes it’s gravelly, sometimes it’s smooth or whispered against his neck, just barely audible, but always the words are filled with such reverence it makes David weak in the knees.

“So my vows,” Patrick says and leaves the sentence there, dangling between them, heavy and full of anticipation. David waits quietly, patiently, and finally, he goes on. “I finished them today.” David’s head snaps to face him, unable to hide his shock. “I know,” Patrick says with a huff of laughter. “I know, I didn’t—I meant to finish them earlier. It just felt…I don’t know…” He’s running his thumbs across his knuckles, over his calluses from baseball and David wastes no time in reaching out to calm them. Patrick looks up, looking a little stricken.

“It wasn’t hard. Writing them,” David says, biting the corner of his mouth and frowning. “But um? I know what you mean. They’re…”

“Big,” Patrick finishes. “I always knew what to put in them. I wrote a draft months ago.”

“What happened to it?” David asks. Patrick wouldn’t be telling him about it if that was it, if that was his final draft. He watches as Patrick reaches into his pocket and takes out a neatly folded sheet of paper, edges evenly ripped along the perforated line from a notebook. 

“These are them.” Patrick flips over the paper in his hand, like he’s thinking about unfolding it. “Every time I practiced—“ David is hit with the image of Patrick up late at night when David is at the motel, lying in bed mouthing the words off the paper at the ceiling, “—I don’t know, I just…” 

He trails off and looks at a loss for words so David picks them up. “Say them to me now,” he offers and Patrick looks at him, lips parted, eyes widened and David thinks that this is what relief looks like. “I did the same thing,” he admits, going red. “Well, I didn’t, but last week when I got around to putting pen to paper, I thought about how I didn’t want to say these words to anyone but you.”

David can hear the breath catch in Patrick’s throat. “Me neither.”

That’s how they end up, twisted in their seats facing each other, Patrick smoothing out the lines of his paper and reading his vows to David, slow and true. David tracks his every movement—when his eyes flick up from the paper and remain locked with David’s, the words on the page nearly memorized, each pause and intake of breath as he talks about fights and promises, lifetimes and their future.

When he finishes, refolding the paper and looking back up, David is unabashedly crying. Patrick’s thumb swipes under his eye, coming away wet before he cups his face and kisses him, tears mingling together.

“I should have gone first,” David says, voice cracking. He takes out his phone, hands shaking. “I’ll never make it through now and it’s your fault.”

Patrick takes his free hand, presses his lips to his knuckles and says, just under his breath, “If it helps, I don’t think I’ll make it through either.”

“It doesn’t, thanks so much.” David trips over his words trying to get them out before he starts crying again. He closes his eyes, swallows the lump in his throat, and pulls up his vows on his phone. “I hand wrote them too, but I wanted a backup, and I thought Alexis might find them or something, which. Well, would be a nightmare. And I’m now realizing that it’s a very good thing you have less self-control than I do? Or at least tonight you do, because I really don’t know what I would have done if I had to say these aloud in front of everyone, probably would have just left, I think—after signing the marriage license, _ obviously_.” 

Patrick is sitting there, in the driver seat of his car outside the motel, patient and loving, and David thinks about the first time he kissed him, almost in this exact spot. And he thinks about how he didn’t feel brave then either, not at all, but he did it anyway, closed the space between them and never looked back; he can do that again. 

So he recites his vows to Patrick, with no one there but the other to keep them accountable, never once looking up from the words because he thinks if he catches sight of Patrick right now his heart really might just give out in this car and he’d like to get married first. 

When he’s done, Patrick is the one to close the space between them, kissing him desperately, hungrily, like he _ needs _ it—needs David even closer, needs him all over. He’s mumbling something into David’s neck, between kisses to his collarbone, his shoulder, his jaw. It isn’t until he pulls away, takes David’s face in his hands and presses his forehead to his that David sees his lips move and hears the words. 

“I love you, I love you, I love you.”

David mouths it back and watches the curve of Patricks’s mouth, the way his eyes fall shut as he smiles, so close David’s eyes almost cross. His eyes are stinging again, his chest tightening too; so he sits there and he breathes and he listens to Patrick’s breath, waits for it to even out, waits for them both to get their feet on solid ground. 

When they do, Patrick runs his thumb across his knuckles, lets go of his hand as if to say, _ Yeah, okay, you can go. _David lingers, mouth twisted to the side, drawing out the minutes until he sees Alexis poking through the window of the room. 

“See you tomorrow?” Patrick says, lips twitching. Tomorrow, when they have to do it again, except in front of people, which in no small way still makes David’s stomach plunge. 

“Tomorrow,” David repeats, forcing himself to open the car door, and he doesn’t hear Patrick pull away until he’s closed the door to the room behind him.

Alexis is off the phone, Stevie quiet in the corner. She mutters something about heading out, wraps her arms around David’s abdomen and tells him goodbye just under her breath. He doesn’t bother pointing out the way her eyes are shining, just hugs her a little tighter, and pushes her out the door so she can get some sleep. He’s grateful Alexis doesn’t say anything when he walks over to their bathroom, eyes glassy. 

He crawls into his old bed, which should feel colder with the absence of Patrick, but doesn’t. He feels warm, thinking about tomorrow and never falling asleep without Patrick on the pillow next to him again.

**Author's Note:**

> you can find me on tumblr at [brewerspatrick](http://www.brewerspatrick.tumblr.com).


End file.
